Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day

I picked up Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day entirely by accident. I was in New York and needed a copy of my wife’s Presidential Instant Message book to give to a television producer. I stopped by a bookstore, wandered to the humor section at the back, and there spotted amidst the Garfields Philip Matyszak’s clever title. I flipped through it, and was hooked.

Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day purports to be a guidebook to help a visitor plan his itinerary in the Rome of AD 200. It opens by telling you how to plan your trip, what documents you will need, what to pick, where to stay, and then describes monuments, financial arrangements, suggestions on what to eat, etc.

Along the way, of course, it serves as a vivid and lively short introduction to daily life in ancient Rome, far more accessible than even such classics as Jerome Carcopino’s Daily Life in Ancient Rome, one of my most beloved gifts from my grandmother, now sadly out of print.

Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day is illustrated with some weirdly arresting computer-generated images of the great buldings of the old city. They look more like screens from “Civilization” than anything ever seen in life, but my eighth-grade son found them helpful. Not enough maps unfortunately. Otherwise a great gift for any student meeting the Romans for the first time – or any HBO viewer who wants to follow up the sexy antics of television’s “Rome” with better understanding of the real thing.

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I’ve lived all of my 51 years in Chicago. I learned world politics by reading Gigi Geyer, Evans & Novak, George Will, and many, many others. I learned Chicago politics by reading Mike Royko, Studs Terkel, and many others.
For me, the tipping point with Evans came when he “outted” Valerie Plame, a crime I believe was treasonous. I wrote him and told him exactly that, and was not surprised when I received no response.
From that point on, I’d glance at his columns, but never again believed anything in them.
When Hunter Thompson would inject himself into the stories he was writing, it was funny. Outting an undercover CIA operative because of a personal grudge wasn’t at all funny.
I still believe Robert Evans committed treason against the United States.

Novak comes off as a sort of American, Jewish-cum-Catholic verson of Evelyn Waugh: nasty, vindictive and palpably self loathing. But he wasn’t unpatriotic. Moreover, he was correct about the War on Terror and Iraq. Compare his foreign policy views to David Frum’s, and then tell me: who comes out looking better on the geopolitics of the past decade?